HTCPCP

Thankfully not in that position any more - however, it was the Very-PC machines that we used to buy - and Colin always was good with prices too. However, do not be tempted by the Viglen devices - poor build, shoddy components, terrible support. If the machines are still working but slow - strip down, clean out and swap the hard drive for a SSD, and you can get a couple of years extra life from them for not a huge outlay. Takes a bit of work your end, but I always find tinkering inside a machine to be quite enjoyable!

Yeah, I think mine was around £100 to build, but included salvaging a processor, HDD, RAM and case from other devices that were on the scrap pile, but gave me a machine off network to scan users media in it, which (if you have a DMZ) is a blessing - all USB sticks/External hard drives/users with suspicious emails go through that machine. Similarly, it's used for most drives that go kaput - sata or M.2. But yeah, can kinda see where you are coming from regarding the price. All depends if you can justify other uses too

I've got a machine (also used for scanning external devices in the DMZ - the main purpose of the machine) which has saved a couple of drives on machines that have died (mostly 2-in-one tablet devices)

And the next day, have some Irn Bru and some bacon with your hangover, and it makes me feel a lot more human again! However, sweeteners in drinks don't taste the same!

Never had any issues with Iiyama screens, not sure about prices though. As for the bundled Android - just don't connect it to the wi-fi or via a network cable to the screen, as there is no issue with it. Most do get them bundled in, simply because that way it can work without the need for a machine attached

I always find dealing with dell a bit like giving yourself root canal with a chain saw, unless you have a good account manager. Unfortunately I couldn't port my account manager when changing, and we got stuck with an account manager who's solution to anything is the most expensive possible - £2k for an i7 laptop with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM? Seriously? I've already told you that we can buy off the shelf for £850! Have to say I've recently got an account with HP and despite offering a bit less choice and customisation, they are brilliant for what we need. Still working on getting both Lenovo and VeryPC in here for a bit of variety!

Bit late, but got myself an AMD 560 4GB Graphics card for £90 down from 130, and a new 24" secondary monitor for £84 - Its not feature rich, but does the job and fits on the wall mount I have for it!

Pre Summer when I left Education, I was working in 5 schools and had been in 2 further schools until not long before when we did a reshuffle and swapped some techs around. Secondary School (Main Site) - Meraki - 1600 kids, one device per pupil Primary School 1 - Meraki - 200 or so kids Primary School 2 - Unifi - 260 or so kids Primary School 3 - Rukus - 160 kids Primary School 4 - Juniper - 300 kids Former school 1 - Meraki - 300 kids Former school 2 - Unifi - 360 kids For my time and troubleshooting issues - Meraki was far easier than the others, but did come in a bit more expensive. Similarly, the Meraki gear wasn't supported by the LA, but could be worked on from anywhere. The Unifi kit was LA installed, and the Rukus was installed by the head over the summer with no input, and the Juniper was a previous Support provider We had a trial of the Meru kit a few years ago, and absolutely hated it. Poorly designed, and just didn't cut it. Well unless their own sales team couldn't set it up properly...

Not a clue if I will go or not - Not in education any more, so who knows! I do work in London, not too far from Excel, so can always meet any edugeekers for a drink in the evening!

Depends completely where you are in the country I believe on how good they are. We had 2 of them fitting 8 screens, they removed the old projectors and brackets, and then just cut off the AV Looms in the ceiling and wall rather than take them out of the trunking. Power cables they either took out if it wasn't in any trunking or just left them hanging in the ceiling... New cables - these were direct runs rather than to a wall box so not ideal They kind of tidied up afterwards, as long as there was nothing in the way, but the job was done and the screens were level. Overall, not who I would have chosen, but they turned up when they said they would, got it done albeit requiring me to do a load of work to finish the job, and not exactly how I wanted it to be done. 6/10

Be firm but polite in your dealings with them, and point out to them that this seems to be a design floor. Also hint at potentially writing to Trading Standards about the design being not fit for purpose. Also, escalate - Speak to the manager, move upwards as much as possible. The problem is for a lot of these companies, the people lower down aren't allowed to do anything beyond exact terms, and are encouraged to reject as many claims to get people to upgrade. In future, just buy Epsons - Never had an issue, and when we had a batch fail just outside of warranty (4-5 out of 30 bought in bulk) they swapped them out anyway saying that it sounded like a faulty batch, and the 3 year education warranty includes the bulb (or at least used to)

HP all the way. I would recommend giving HP a call though, as I've had some insane deals from HP recently, and very quick delivery too. Really can't fault them with it. I would avoid the Vostro range completely, not very well built, and from experience doesn't cope with the knocks a teacher gives them!

You may want to check to see if there is a newer BIOS version available? Also, how is the SSD connected? Is it a SATA device, or an M.2 Device. I have had issues with M.2 before now.

What's the difference in price for running 4 or 6 network points in the same area as apposed to 2? - Not a fat deal. It's just as easy to run the extra cables, and takes a couple of minutes extra to terminate each end. Whereas if you have to run cables later, it can look a bit scruffier, and you have to pay for someone to come in and do it at the same time. If you can, try and get a proper network cabler, not a sparkie to run the cables too though!

A 4 year old, low end card will never be particularly great, but looking at the specs, it should out perform the minimum specs for the game. It won't have a massively high FPS, and are well below speed (but also a lot cheaper) than the recommended GPU (R9 280, GTX 960). But for a 50-60 quid GPU, it's not that bad. If you can get them to pay about double for the card, you have the RX 550 which is a superior card by quite some way (the 4GB version is the one to go for)

For that kind of price, you should be able to pick up a new 4 year old design AMD R7 240/250 model

How many ethernet ports and where they should be? - More than you think you will need - I tend to go for 4 on each wall (they don't all need patching through, but means you have flexibility. What type of ethernet cable should I use (Cat 6/7 etc.)? - Cat 6 What type of projectors should I buy? - Interactive Smart Screens - makes the room just look a lot neater too. Most no longer come with VGA, so you need to factor that in. Anything else I should consider? - Power - you need to have 2 for PC, 1 for screen, potentially 1 for powered splitter, spares for camera, ipad etc where the board is going to be. Then you want at least 4, I normally go for 8 power by each set of network sockets - I find primary use more than secondary, but people always moan there aren't enough sockets!

The Iiyama Prolite Touch screens are not bad (and I think they go up that big now). Used the smaller 27" screens before now, and never had a problem. A 65" screen is what we use in full classrooms, so you may want to look at a 55" screen instead. Speak to your supplier and get a trial for a week, as a smaller screen may be the best option for you.

We use a google form, that goes onto a staff viewable (but not editable) google sheet. All embedded on the staff intranet, so students can't play around with it. (also tracks staff email address too for when they are in 'such a rush' that they can't type their name in the box...

Never had anyone (apart from people who wanted a shiny new machine rather than an upgrade) who have ever moaned (Can sort that out by changing the case). Then again, make sure you use a decent SSD - I nearly always buy Samsungs (Evo for standard machines, pro for high end machines), and also used the HyperX Savage before and found them to be fine. Then again, if you go for the OCZ Agility 3, or Corsair Force series, then it will be faster than a spinner, but not anywhere near as much!

I know that making a cup of coffee usually means a larger job comes up meaning I get to drink it cold, but the idea of putting ice in my coffee...

For us, we have 2 VLANs for the wifi - the curriculum VLAN which can host up to 500 devices - for staff devices and laptops etc. Then we have the public VLAN which has over 4000 addresses available to it. The main things to think about a 1:1 scheme that we picked up are: - Bandwidth - We have really struggled with our internet connection here, bouncing off the top limit - Where the use is going to be - We found areas where we thought there would be more than adequate coverage, struggle where you had too many devices connecting which caused issues - What you want to do with it - We have our student devices on one VLAN, segregated from our network, and was something we realised that we should have done right from the start. Also had the advantage of meaning we didn't have to enter any proxy settings etc. - The APs themselves. Really advise you to make sure you have a good managed wifi connection. Makes your life so much easier. We went for Meraki, and made sure we got someone in to survey the site for us. Made our job a lot easier. We have 38 APs spread around the site, mostly with high use, with some extras put in to ensure total coverage even if the demands aren't there, just stops complaints!

All depends what you want to do within CC really. Our machines that are regularly running CC have either: an i7 3770 with 16GB RAM an i7 6700 with 8GB RAM an i5 6500 with 8GB RAM All SSD based machines The machine that is used for video editing improved no end when we (the newer i7 machine) has a GTX 1050 too. For the students however, the machines run Pentium G840s and G860s, or i3 3240s, and are fine for ordinary use and seem fine

I always go for CommsExpress too, however I believe the shortest they do is 0.3m. Normally for shorter cables, I tend to do them myself with a box - can get them to fit perfectly that way - then again, we only use them very rarely

Primaries - tends to be laptops for every teacher (and a few spares for cover/TA (although a couple of schools have now gone/started to go down the desktop route), replaced every 3-5 years depending on who it is, and how much they use it (a staff member who uses it heavily and looks after it with lots of interactivity gets them more frequently than a staff member who just uses it for smart and Secondary - Desktop in every classroom, with a very small number of staff laptops (SIMS manager has one, Laptop for timetable creating, DSP and both deputies have one, and the others are just legacy pieces of kit we have reused if someone can come up with an interesting enough use for 'needing' a laptop - Best one (also most honest) - They were going on a week long field trip, and they wanted a larger screen to watch catchup TV in the evening.